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Statistics

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Service in the Reading Rooms
Seats available for users
(at 31 March 2007)		 Reader desks 1Other provision
Humanities Floor 1 and 2 Reading Rooms 436 85
Rare Books and Music Reading Room 293 74
Maps Reading Room 37 20
Asian & African Studies Reading Room (formerly known as Oriental and India Office Reading Room) 83 47
Manuscripts Reading Room 72 24
Philatelic Collections 1 0
Science Reading Rooms 128 38
Business and IP Centre 32 73
Social Sciences Reading Room 50 27
Newspapers (Colindale) 77 62
Boston Spa Reading Room 76 10
TOTAL 1,285 460

Notes

1This includes seats provided at the British Library Integrated Catalogue screens, electronic database terminals, microform readers and carrels [the individual study booths in the Reading Rooms].

Bibliographic services
Records in British Library catalogues and databases (at 31 March 2007) 2006/07 2005/06
British Library Integrated Catalogue1, 2 11,857,089 11,515,486
Access to archives2 593,338 573,973
Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections – Japanese and Chinese2, 3 55,414 46,441
Allied and Complementary Medicine (AMED) 208,372 195,726
British National Bibliography (BNB) 2,580,606 2,436,864
Sound Archive Catalogue2 3,076,215 3,056,900
English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)2 469,268 468,647
Incunable Short Title Catalogue (ISTC)2 29,764 29,438
Electronic table of contents2, 4 30,264,915 27,745,402
International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSN) UK Centre 90,461 87,137
Manuscripts2 801,091 788,548
Newspapers2 53,198 53,074
Register of Preservation Surrogates 213,794 208,653
TOTAL5 50,293,525 47,206,289

Notes

1 Number of unique records. A project to remove any duplication is ongoing.
2 Available from the Library's website.
3 All other Asia, Pacific and Africa Collection material, except for Japanese and Chinese material, is included in the British Library Integrated Catalogue.
4 A database listing articles and conference papers by title, derived from the top 20,000 research journals. The database is made available through British Library Direct and to higher education through zetoc.mimas.ac.uk.
5 The total does not represent the number of unique records. There is significant overlap between some files e.g. British National Bibliography and British Library Integrated Catalogue.

Collection development
Collection Holdings (at 31 March 2007) 2006/07 2005/06
Monographs1 13,758,905 13,427,489
Serial titles (all)2 879,320 873,071
Newspaper titles (all)3 56,335 56,200
Manuscripts (single and volumes) 327,560 314,914
India Office records4 392,013 391,972
Philatelic items 8,261,099 8,252,724
Cartographic items 4,330,660 4,317,464
Music scores 1,597,304 1,594,246
Sound discs 1,399,027 1,366,487
Sound tape items 242,227 239,263
Videos 29,200 27,582
Prints and drawings 32,779 32,629
Photographs 277,662 273,368
Patent specifications 60,602,725 57,928,334
Reports in microform 10,257,901 10,203,631
Theses 160,467 158,000
TOTAL 102,605,184 99,457,374

Notes

1 The figure for monographs is based on the number of items in the relevant catalogues.  This figure includes an estimate of items covered by card catalogues.
2 The figure for serials titles is based on the number of records in the relevant catalogues. Changes of title are therefore counted as separate titles. This figure includes an estimate of items covered by card catalogues.
3 The figure for newspaper titles includes weekly and fortnightly magazines as well as newspapers.
4 The archives of the India Office (1858-1947) and its predecessors, including the East India Company (1600-1858).

Items received on legal deposit 2006/07 2005/06
Monographs 97,144 103,357
Serial issues 283,180 282,352
Maps and atlases 2,078 2,544
Music scores 2,015 1,712
Newspaper issues  151,903 154,617
Playscripts 297 218
TOTAL 536,617 544,800
Serial titles received 38,384 38,253
Claims for items not automatically deposited 240,810 234,440
Website usage
Use of www.bl.uk  2006/07 2005/06
Unique hosts served1 4,973,782 4,229,076
Successful requests for pages (page hits)2  60,938,371 48,495,880

Notes

1 Unique hosts served is the best approximation available to the number of individual users of the website.
2 The number of pages of all types viewed on the website. Every landing on every page is counted in this figure.

Storage
Kilometres of shelving and percentage occupied 2006/07 2005/06
Working capacity: linear km1 654.5 654.5
Extent of collection: linear km2 630.2 624.2
Percentage occupied 96.27% 95.37%

Notes

1 Working capacity represents the linear length of the solid stock, plus the associated growth spaces without which the collection could not be used and added to effectively.
2 During 2006-2007 the gross increase in the extent of the material acquired by the Library was 11km. The net increase in the extent of the collection was reduced to 6km through the compression of stock at Boston Spa.

Preservation
Preservation funding  2006/07 2005/06
Grant in aid  £6,106,000 £7,350,000
Donations/external funds £583,000 £470,000
Sales income £242,000 £300,000
TOTAL £6,931,000 £8,120,000
Items preserved 2006/07 2005/06
Conservation and/or rebinding1 3,538 6,382
New binding 49,650 43,064
Minor repairs2 2,029 22,362
Boxing/other work 10,669 8,602
Preservation microfilming 15,481 15,891
TOTAL 81,367 96,301
Preservation microfilming 2006/07 2005/06
Newspapers: frames of film 15,653,359 16,096,701
Books, periodicals, record volumes, manuscripts: frames of film 1,568,833 1,582,197
TOTAL 17,222,192 17,678,898

Notes

1 Fluctuations in figures are due to the normal variations which occur annually when treating a wide range of non-standard items.
2 Minor repairs figures are substantially reduced because the department no longer undertakes much work of this type.